Wiping the wooden countertop for the umpteenth time, Avery let out a sigh. The tavern only had a pair of customers nursing their spirits in silence. Shooting another glance at the time panel, "guess it's slow business again for today."

Avery flopped into her chair and cupped her chin as she splayed over the bar. "Won't either of you order anything to eat? You can't possibly hold down all that mead with an empty stomach."

Hearing her encouraging words, the two couldn't help but smile wryly. "Miss Avery, as much as we'd like to, your prices are just too much for us Wood ranks."

The other gave out his agreement, "our only saving grace is the cheap booze you serve."

"Suit yourselves." Avery didn't press the matter further. She understood that Wood rank Adventurers could only earn so much in a month. "By the way, why is it that for the past couple of days only a handfull of you have been showing up here?"

"The Alchemist Guild called for a ten day raid over at Stone Monkey Ridge." Kale downed his mug before continuing, " We would have joined in too if only our mission quotas hadn't capped out!"

A frown found itself on Avery's face. She sat up on her stool. Her fingers tapping incessantly on the hardwood. "And those bearded grinches didn't bother to run it by my Frontier? Tsk. It seems like they're begging for another visit. Ignoring procedures. They have guts!"

Forest Valley Fort is a three year old frontier outpost established to spearhead the wilderness exploration on planet W0316, Eclipse. It serves as both the settlement and a supply point. Lead by Guild Master Ruth, the group that built and manages the Fort is precisely the Adventurer Guild's Eclipse branch.

Adjacent to the Adventurer Guild is a tavern called Frontier. Aside from serving specialized food and drinks to Adventurers, the tavern also doubles as Forest Valley Fort's bulletin of sorts. For better management and various safety precautions, all middle to large scale mission applications would have to pass through Frontier for initial screening before passing it on to the Fort for approval. Unless adventurers are looking for mission under specific tasks or types, the first place they'd visit would be Frontier.

For the past year, the Alchemist Guild had been doing everything they could to skimp out on having to deal with Frontier. The reason for this is probably because of the fierce competition between the two. Potions that the Alchenist Guild provided were all of decent standard but they were all bitter and tasteless. On the contrary, effects of the delicious food and a portion of the drinks provided by Frontier could rival that of their potions.

The Alchemist Guild that was meant to be the key supplier within the Fort was reduced to a mess of patchy bearded old men from pulling on their beards so much.

Focusing her eyes back onto the two regulars, she threw them two loaves said, "I'll give you a level five [Plain Bread] each. Go call someone over from the Adventurer Guild. Tell them it's me."

Kale and Dwarf's eyes grew wide. They shoved the loaves into their inventories, guzzled the last of their drinks, and sprinted next door. In less than a moment they came back with a white uniformed youth in tow.

The youth pulled on the crisp uniform -- flattening out non-existent creases -- and stood as tall as he could. "Miss Avery, how could I be of sevice to you?"

"Did those geezers submit a raid request directly to the Fort?"

The youth's brows creased in confusion. "Raid request? From my knowledge, there hadn't been any of this sort of mission application since [Crystal Krast Raid] over four months ago."

"Then what about missions that involve Stone Monkey Ridge?"

The youth thought for a moment and his eyes brightened up. "Last week the Alchemist Guild applied for a search bounty at Stone Monkey Ridge. I'm not aware of all the details involved in that mission since it was proccessed by Vice Manager Wallice."

"I see..."

After a moment of silence, Avery took a small sheet from the side and scribbled on it. Folding piece of paper in half, she passed the letter to the uniformed youth. "Give this to Wallice. I also want you to announce that the Alchemist Guild will tripple the reward that they offered for the Stone Monkey mission. Make sure that the announcement is very public and that those old bag of bones see it very clearly."

"Yes, Ma'am!" The uniformed youth bowed before scurrying off.

Those old mules are too stubborn for their own good. It wasn't the first time that they tried to hoodwink the mission assesment. Last time it was a [Common Herb] gathering request that even Wood rank adventurers could handle. They somehow turned it into a search mission meant for Silver rank adventurers and higher. Wood to Silver, that's a three rank gap!

And before that, it was an assassination disguised as a capture mission. Which might have worked if Avery's face wasn't added into the equation.

Those old dogs just never learn.

Avery turned her gaze toward the duo, "are you two gonna just stand there like idiots or are you gonna order anything else?"

"No, no, we're uh... leaving!" They stiffly shook their heads and left as fast as they could.

Staring speachlessly at the closing double doors, Avery shook her head lamenting in her heart, "why is it so hard to run a store?"